


six ways to sunday

by polkadot



Category: Actor RPF, How I Met Your Mother RPF
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Crush, F/M, Fluff, Hollywood, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Developing a crush on a co-star is an occupational hazard in Hollywood, and the set of <i>How I Met Your Mother</i> isn't an exception. Aly and David have a heart-to-heart talk. (And Neil chokes on some water.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	six ways to sunday

Aly’s always had a thing for Neil, okay? Really, it’s not like it should be surprising. She thinks pretty much everyone on the cast has a thing for Neil. Or actually, everyone who ever sees him. It’s just inevitable. He’s _Neil_.

Right now he’s breezed past her on his way to ask Pam a question. He’s not in costume yet, and the pen tucked behind his ear gives him an abstracted look, a little like an absentminded professor. His jeans are just that little bit tighter than most people wear them, perfectly fitted, and Aly finds her eyes trailing after him, helplessly traveling over his…assets. At least with his back to her he won’t notice, although she’s pretty sure he’s aware of her little crush. Sometimes she thinks he’s playing them all, enjoying the attention and showing himself off on purpose.

Who’s she kidding, he _certainly_ is. Because he’s awesome like that.

“Sometimes I think I shouldn’t let him out of the house.”

The voice from the other person at the table with her hits Aly like a shower of ice water. Because the raised eyebrows and quizzical look aimed in her direction come from the person playing Lily’s ex-boyfriend, Scooter – or, as David’s otherwise known, Neil’s better half. 

“Uh…” _Oh, very eloquent, Aly_ , she thinks, although under the circumstances perhaps she should be glad she can form words at all. She clears her throat. “Can we pretend you didn’t just catch me checking out your boyfriend?”

For a second longer she’s afraid she’s really offended him, but then his poker face fails and he cracks up. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone does.”

“Sorry,” Aly apologizes.

David shakes his head, lips still quivering with amusement. “Segel’s worse than you. Besides,” and he leans across the table, elbow planted on his script, “don’t tell Neil I told you, but he likes it.”

The conspiratorial whisper makes her giggle. “Really? I would never have guessed. He’s such a shy and retiring person.”

David shrugs, waving his hand in a cryptic gesture. “He started off on TV, but he joined the dark side – Broadway,” he clarifies, when she levels a confused look at him, “and we cured him of any lingering shyness.” His grin is sharper than the puppy-dog one Aly’s used to seeing on him. It’s a good look.

“The dark side?” she asks, taking a sip from her water bottle. “Do I want to know?”

“We have cookies,” David says, illogically, but doesn’t linger on this puzzling fact. “He was in _Rent_ , remember. And come on, you’ve seen the _Cabaret_ pictures. Do you think Neil could have any shyness left after all that glitter on his nipples?”

Aly valiantly shakes the thought of bedazzled nipples out of her mind, only to be immediately confronted with another. “David, I saw _Paris Letter_.”

He raises his water bottle in a mock salute. “See? Not shy.”

Neil and Josh hadn’t had that long of a nude scene, but it’s the reason _Paris Letter_ is still burned in her memory. That and the making out, which would become kind of weird in retrospect after they all subsequently got cast as best friends (and then _became_ best friends). But mostly Aly remembers Neil’s ass – even back then, before he buffed up, his ass was glorious – and, yes, his package. Hey, sometimes a girl’s gotta look, and he was letting it all hang out. Gloriously.

David’s eyes are dancing, almost as if he can hear what she’s thinking. She flushes and tears herself away from her thoughts with an effort. “I was just kidding about him being shy and retiring.”

“I know,” David says, grinning. “But he did use to be shy, once upon a time. He just… isn’t really anymore.”

As if by magic, Aly’s traitorous brain supplies the memories of only a few weeks earlier, when they’d had to film the Lily-Barney kissing scene. She doesn’t know how Cobie does it, not when Neil makes noises like _that_ right in your ear, and slips you quite a lot of tongue for an acting-kiss, and holds you up like you weigh nothing, and just in general makes your body forget for a moment that you’re on a soundstage with cameras everywhere and instead go “hey girl we gonna get us some _action_ ” – dammit. 

“You’ve turned an interesting shade of red,” David says, and yes, he’s definitely laughing at her now. 

“Yes, well, it’s a completely natural reaction,” Aly says, crossly. When he keeps laughing, she takes the very mature response of flicking water at him. 

He sobers up after a minute, though he’s still grinning. “I suppose I can’t blame you. It’s normal to get crushes on your co-stars, especially when they’re as hot as Neil.”

He’s been joking around, but his voice softens on the last bit, and his eyes stray in Neil and Pam’s direction. Any other time, Aly would think it cute and get the little hearts-in-eyes thing, but right now she sees her chance to turn this around and jumps on it. “Oh, is that so? Then who do you have a crush on?”

David blinks – then flushes. 

Time to press home her temporary advantage. “Jason? I’m probably contractually obliged to say that he’s cute. Josh? A bit too dorky for me, but to each their own. Oooh, is it Joe Manganiello? Mmm. Tasty.”

“Shut up,” David says, covering his face with his hand. “I was talking about in general.”

“Sure you were.”

“I _was_ ,” David starts, removing his hand from his face in order to glare at her – she grins innocently back –before he focuses on something behind her and his expression changes. “Uh, hi, Neil!”

Neil drops into a chair next to them, reaching for David’s water bottle. “How are you two?”

“Running lines,” David says, sounding completely unconvincing. “Yes. We’re running lines. I am Scooter and I am a stalker with puppy-dog eyes.”

Neil arches an eyebrow at him over his stolen water bottle. “What are you _really_ talking about?”

David looks slightly panicked, so Aly comes to the rescue. “Your ass.”

She has excellent timing. Although in the moment that Neil chokes on his (or rather David’s) water, she realizes that CBS might not appreciate her hospitalizing or even killing the star of the show. Still, it’s not like she planned it. (Well, maybe a _little_.)

After Neil recovers and waves away the concerned onlookers, he levels an amused if watery glare at her. “My _ass_?”

“It’s lovely,” Aly says, serenely. Somehow talking to David has cured her of her own shyness about the subject. For now, anyway. She’ll probably lie in bed tonight burning with delayed embarrassment. (Yes. That’s why she’ll be burning. Of course.) “We’ve decided to form the Neil Patrick Harris Ass Appreciation Society.”

Neil does that thing with his forehead lines, looking back and forth between the two of them. David’s relaxed a bit and isn’t beet red anymore. “I kind of think David’s been a member of that society for a few years now. Unless he’s been lying to me all this time.”

“Yes, well,” Aly says, determined not to lose the upper hand, “anyway, we were talking about co-star crushes, that’s all. I was just about to get David to tell me what his is.” She turns to David, who’s suddenly looking embarrassed again. Haha. He should know not to relax too soon, not with the Hannigan around. She doesn’t give up easily. “I was right about Joe, wasn’t I?” 

Neil laughs.

“What?” Aly asks, just as David says, “ _Neil_.”

Neil holds up his hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed.”

Aly looks at him in suspicion. “You know. You know!”

“Of course I know,” he says, leaning back in his chair with an insufferable smile and putting his hands behind his head. Aly glares at him. He knows exactly what that pose does for his arms. If she hadn’t thought he was showing off before, she’d be sure of it now. “I’m his fiancé. He tells me all about that kind of stuff.”

“Argh,” Aly says, and folds her arms in a particular way she learned years ago. If he’s going to show off the guns, she’s not above showing off the girls. “Is it Joe Nieves? You know, Carl the bartender,” she says, when David looks blank. “Or, ooh, have you gone for Wayne? You know, Barney’s brother.”

“I think when you have to tell him who they are it kind of rules them out,” Neil informs her.

She makes a face at him. “Not necessarily. I’ve had major crushes on people I never knew the names of. Totally possible. I’m not crushing on their _names_.”

“That’s true,” Neil allows. “But no, it’s someone whose name he definitely knows.”

“ _Neil_ ,” David pleads. He seems to be torn between burying his face in his hands again and glaring at his wayward fiancé. 

“Someone whose name…” Aly starts, and then takes a closer look at the two of them, Neil trying not to completely break down laughing, David flushing and not able to meet her eyes. “Wait a minute.”

“And the penny drops,” Neil says, _sotto voce_. Aly smacks him on the arm, and he teeters in his chair. Serves him right for tipping it back. “What was that for?”

“For being mean to David by telling me.” 

“I didn’t!” Neil protests.

Aly sighs. “You so did.” She turns to David. “Dude, you just caught me checking Neil out. I’m hardly going to get annoyed with you for checking _me_ out.” She waits a beat, then makes a show of looking down at herself complacently. “Besides, like you said earlier, I can hardly blame you. I’m hot stuff.”

David still looks a bit like he wants to die, but he manages a stifled, “Thanks.”

“I thought you were gay, though?” Aly thinks for a moment. “Really nice compliment, then. Check me out all you like. I don’t have Neil’s ass, but I do have great boobs.”

Neil is rubbing at his arm where she hit him, with a martyred look on his face. “You should definitely take it as a compliment, even if you are an evil woman prone to violence, but David does round up.”

“Round up?” 

Neil grins. “After having me he’ll obviously never be able to give my amazingness up and go back on the market, so he rounds himself up to gay. Technically he’s more bi, though. You should hear his stories about before he met me. David makes Barney look like an amateur – he’d tell you ruling out 50% of the population was a statistically flawed thing to do.”

“Oh god, this conversation just gets better and better,” David says, although he seems to have gotten over the first embarrassment. Aly knows the feeling. At least it’s _out_ now that she thinks Neil’s incredibly hot and kind of wants to bite his ass and lick his arm muscles. (Well. Maybe not out in that much detail.)

She sits back in her chair and stares at the couple in front of her. “This is hilarious. David has a crush on me and I have a crush on Neil. Neil, do you have a crush on anyone? Bob Saget?”

“He has a bit of a crush on Cobie,” David says, making a total haha-revenge face at Neil. 

Aly’s beginning to feel a rising urge to giggle. “We’re so Hollywood.”

“No, if we were ‘so Hollywood’ we’d be inviting you over to our house for a threesome,” Neil says, laughing – and then catches his own words and blushes six ways to Sunday.

Both Aly and David swivel to stare at him.

He holds his hands up. “Joking! Just joking! Don’t send Alexis after me. Or after David, for that matter. I prefer David in one piece. And myself in one piece. But especially David in one piece. I’m blathering now. I’ll shut up.”

“Sadly, I’m married and you guys should be,” Aly says, regretfully. “Otherwise my answer to that joke would have probably been to cop a feel under the table.”

“Do it,” David says, grinning at her. “He deserves it. Do it.”

Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, Aly would roll her eyes and probably make a big show of needing to return to their actual work of practicing lines. (Even if later she would call back the memories in the privacy of her own head, because fantasies are harmless, right?) Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, she would jump Alexis’s bones as soon as she got home, even before dinner, and then probably jump them again before bed. Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, she would practice self-control in the face of overwhelming temptation.

David’s grinning at her, and Neil’s grinning at her too, the two of them so free and happy and probably playing footsie underneath the table even now, and she’s glad they have each other, because finding the person you love – finding the person who loves you back – is the best thing in the whole world, if you ask her. And crushes are all well and good, they’re spicy and fun and delightful, but they’re nothing compared to that overwhelming knowledge of rightness that true love brings. Neil’s ass, fine and perfect as it is, can’t compare to Alexis in her bed in the mornings.

Later, Aly will blame the thought of Alexis, combined with the giddiness brought on by having all the crushes out in the open, and seasoned with a soupçon of wanting to surprise the two grinning men in front of her – because neither of those two think she’ll do it, not for a moment – for what she does next.

Neil’s eyes go comically wide and David lets out a delighted whoop.

“That may be one of the most Hollywood things I’ve ever done,” she says, taking her hand away from the front of his pants and biting her lip to keep from bursting out laughing. “Oh, Neil, your _face_.”

“You just…grabbed my penis,” Neil says, disbelievingly.

“Yes,” Aly says, “I did.”

After a long moment, in which David has not stopped laughing and Neil’s eyebrows are still raised to the heavens, she adds, “You can touch my boobs if you want. Over the shirt, of course. Or David can. I suppose that’d be good character research anyway - I’m sure Scooter got to second base.”

“Say what now?” David says, instantly attentive.

“The things I do for you,” Neil tells him. “Get felt up under tables. It must be love.”

David reaches out to twine his hand through Neil’s, and they share a Meaningful Look before he turns to Aly. “I’m good, Aly. I’ll admire you from afar. But if you’ll excuse us now…”

“How am I supposed to run my lines without Scooter?” Aly asks, in a mock-injured tone, then throws him an exaggerated wink. “Go on. I’ll cover for you two. Just be quick about it.”

As they vanish hurriedly, Aly pulls out her phone to text Alexis. He may not be on set today, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make plans for later. 

And oh, Aly has plans. She may have turned down an ultra-hot Devil’s Threeway (copyright Barney Stinson) – definitely an image that she’ll be playing out in her fantasies in future – but that’s okay. Because _her_ plans involve the hottest man in the world, the man she loves. 

She smiles and hits send.

**Author's Note:**

> Alyson really did go see _The Paris Letter_ \- which, if you haven't read about it and listened to the audio, you should. And if you ever pull a Barney and scour the Internet for video and/or pictures from it, well, let me know if you're successful, okay?
> 
> In my mind this is set during "Hooked" (S05E16), which has Scooter in it. This means that "Bagpipes" (S05E06), with Lily and Barney's kissing scene, wouldn't have been long before it. And Alexis didn't come back as Sandy Rivers until the next season. If I've messed up the chronology somehow, though, then it isn't set then. xD


End file.
